Gap narrows for manufacturing costs
It still costs more to make things in the U.S. than overseas. But the U.S. manufacturing sector has kept a lid on some things better than its foreign counterparts, like employee health care. Jeff Tyler reports.
Chrysler Group assembly-line workers install powertrains into Chrysler Sebring Sedans in Sterling Heights, Mich. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
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TEXT OF STORY
Scott Jagow: It still costs more to make things in the U.S. than overseas. But a study out today says the gap is narrowing. Marketplace's Jeff Tyler has more.
Jeff Tyler: The National Association of Manufacturers studied the cost of doing business in the U.S. compared to nine other countries. It shows that the U.S. manufacturing sector has kept a lid on employee benefits and health care costs more successfully than foreign competitors.
Emily DeRocco is president of The Manufacturing Institute, one of the reports sponsors. She says other costs continue to put U.S. manufacturers at a disadvantage.
Emily DeRocco: We are paying the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world.
That would be about 39 percent.
DeRocco: This corporate tax rate drives U.S. costs up, and limits our ability to be competitive with our products across the global marketplace.
DeRocco says the corporate tax rate in U.K. is 30 percent. And in China, it's 25 percent.
I'm Jeff Tyler for Marketplace.
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From Minneapolis, MN, 11/13/2008
I can't believe you let that Republican talking point puppet repeat that tripe about the corporate income tax without challenging it. Yes, the U.S. has a high tax rate, but the actual taxes they pay are the lowest in the developed world.
Two thirds of our companies and foreign companies in the U.S. pay absolutely no federal income tax, according to the GAO (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08957.pdf) and corporations pay less as a percentage of GDP than most of our trading partners (http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/07230%20r.pdf)
But you let this corporate lackey go unchallenged. Shame on you.
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